By Hadas Gold, CNN

(CNN) — Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, has been flooded with sexual images of mainly women, many of them real people. Users have prompted the chatbot to to “digitally undress” those people and sometimes place them in suggestive poses.

In several cases last week, some appeared to be images of minors, leading to the creation of images that many users are calling child pornography.

The AI-generated images highlight the dangers of AI and social media – especially in combination – without sufficient guardrails to protect some of society’s most vulnerable. The images could violate domestic and international laws and place many people, including children, in harm’s way.

Musk and xAI have said that they are taking action “against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.” But Grok’s responses to user requests are still flooded with images sexualizing women.

Publicly, Musk has long advocated against “woke” AI models and against what he calls censorship. Internally at xAI, Musk has pushed back against guardrails for Grok, one source with knowledge of the situation at xAI told CNN. Meanwhile, his xAI’s safety team, already small compared to its competitors, lost several staffers in the weeks leading up to the explosion of “digital undressing.”

‘Digitally undressing’ people

Grok has always been an outlier compared to other mainstream AI models by allowing, and in some cases promoting, sexually explicit content and companion avatars.

And in contrast to competitors such as Google’s Gemini or OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Grok is built into one of the most popular social media platforms, X. While users can talk to Grok privately, they can also tag Grok in a post with a request, and Grok will respond publicly.

The recent surge in widespread, non-consensual “digital undressing” began in late December, when many users discovered they could tag Grok and ask it to edit images from an X post or thread.

Initially many posts requested Grok put people in bikinis. Musk reposted images of himself and others, like longtime nemesis Bill Gates, in bikinis.

Researchers at Copyleaks, an AI detection and content governance platform, found that the trend may have started when adult-content creators prompted Grok to generate sexualized imagery of themselves as a form of marketing. But almost immediately “users began issuing similar prompts about women who had never appeared to consent to them,” Copyleaks found.

Researchers at AI Forensics, a European non-profit that investigates algorithms, analyzed over 20,000 random images generated by Grok and 50,000 user requests between December 25 and January 1.

The researchers found “a high prevalence of terms including ‘her’ ‘put’/’remove,’ ‘bikini,’ and ‘clothing.’” More than half of the images generated of people, or 53%, “contained individuals in minimal attire such as underwear or bikinis, of which 81% were individuals presenting as women,” the researchers found. Notably, 2% of images depicted people appearing to be 18 years old or younger, the researchers found.

AI Forensics also found that in some cases, users requested minors be put in erotic positions and that sexual fluids be depicted on their bodies. Grok complied with those requests, according to AI Forensics.

Although X allows pornographic content, xAI’s own “acceptable use policy” prohibits “Depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner” and “The sexualization or exploitation of children.” X has suspended some accounts for these kinds of requests and removed the images.

On January

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By Amanda Musa, CNN

(CNN) — The woman shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis is being remembered as a loving mother and partner whose family is shocked by the circumstances surrounding her death.

Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, was killed when an ICE agent shot into her vehicle during an encounter Wednesday morning.

The shooting took place on a snow-lined street where an ICE vehicle had gotten stuck, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. A “mob of agitators that were harassing them,” blocked them in and attempted to impede their efforts, Noem said.

One of those vehicles was being driven by the victim, who proceeded to “weaponize her vehicle” in an attempt to run over an officer before he opened fire, Noem said.

While Noem defended the agent’s actions, state and local officials strongly disputed claims that the shooting – which was caught on video – was done in self-defense.

The shooting has spiked already-heightened tensions in Minneapolis, where around 2,000 federal agents were deployed this week as part of the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown. The deployment came on the heels of accusations of welfare fraud in the Somali immigrant community raised by a conservative content creator on YouTube.

Here’s what we know about the woman killed in the ICE shooting:

Who was Renee Nicole Good?

Good lived in the Twin Cities with her partner, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported citing her mother, Donna Ganger.

“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger told the newspaper. “She was extremely compassionate.”

“She’s taken care of people all her life,” Ganger added. “She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”

Good was a mother to a 6-year-old child whose father died in 2023, according to the Star Tribune. “There’s nobody else in his life,” the child’s grandfather told the newspaper.

Good spent most of her life in Colorado and briefly moved to Kansas to live with her parents for a time after her husband – a military veteran – died, her father Tim Ganger told The Washington Post.

“She had a good life, but a hard life,” Tim Ganger told the Post. “She was a wonderful person.”

Speaking to CNN affiliate KMGH, Good’s uncle Robert Ganger, said news of his niece’s passing was especially difficult for the family since Good’s older sister was celebrating her bi

CNN, POOL, WCCO, EMILY HELLER, TREVOR HEITKAMP

By Amanda Musa, CNN

(CNN) — The woman shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis is being remembered as a loving mother and partner whose family is shocked by the circumstances surrounding her death.

Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old US citizen, was killed when an ICE agent shot into her vehicle during an encounter Wednesday morning.

The shooting took place on a snow-lined street where an ICE vehicle had gotten stuck, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. A “mob of agitators that were harassing them,” blocked them in and attempted to impede their efforts, Noem said.

One of those vehicles was being driven by the victim, who proceeded to “weaponize her vehicle” in an attempt to run over an officer before he opened fire, Noem said.

While Noem defended the agent’s actions, state and local officials strongly disputed claims that the shooting – which was caught on video – was done in self-defense.

The shooting has spiked already-heightened tensions in Minneapolis, where around 2,000 federal agents were deployed this week as part of the Trump administration’s latest immigration crackdown. The deployment came on the heels of accusations of welfare fraud in the Somali immigrant community raised by a conservative content creator on YouTube.

Here’s what we know about the woman killed in the ICE shooting:

Who was Renee Nicole Good?

Good lived in the Twin Cities with her partner, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported citing her mother, Donna Ganger.

“Renee was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known,” Ganger told the newspaper. “She was extremely compassionate.”

“She’s taken care of people all her life,” Ganger added. “She was loving, forgiving and affectionate. She was an amazing human being.”

Good was a mother to a 6-year-old child whose father died in 2023, according to the Star Tribune. “There’s nobody else in his life,” the child’s grandfather told the newspaper.

Good spent most of her life in Colorado and briefly moved to Kansas to live with her parents for a time after her husband – a military veteran – died, her father Tim Ganger told The Washington Post.